This invention relates to processing textile fibers and particularly to special use of apparatus for opening, cleaning and carding fibers.
Conventionally fibers, particularly cotton, have been opened from bale and cleaned on blowroom machines which act to separate the fibers, ideally to single fiber state, and to extract at least some of the trash from the fibers. Following this process the fibers have been carded to extract further trash and to straighten and align the fibers.
More particularly apparatus has been provided comprising a plurality of blowroom machines for opening and cleaning the fibers from a supply thereof, a plurality of carding machines for receiving fibers from the blowroom machines, one or more of the machines including means for separating from the fibers waste material which includes a proportion of fibers and means for collecting the waste material.
More recently attention has been concentrated on more effectively cleaning the trash from the fibers both in view of the development of openend spinning which is very sensitive to trash in the fibers and in view of impending legislation on dust levels emitted in fiber processing.
It has been known in the past to re-introduce fibers taken from the waste extraction area of a card into the fiber feed of the card. Additionally it has been known to collect centrally waste material from a number of points in a blowroom/card line for sale to or use by waste spinners specializing in spinning coarse dirty yarns from waste, for example, mop yarn.
However, it has always been a requirement of blowroom/card lines that the amount of good fibers extracted with the waste be kept to a minimum because, it will be appreciated, loss of good fiber increases the costs of spinning, despite the fact that it can be sold at much reduced price to waste spinners. Thus both the opening and cleaning blow room machines and the cards have generally been designed to extract as little fiber as possible commensurate with removing sufficient trash to effect efficient spinning. For example, cards have been designed to remove between 3 and 6% on average waste content, which has been found acceptable by spinners.